Pygmy elephants, PhDs and Potholes

Well we have enjoyed 10 days of memory making. I find it intriguing, as to how past memories are prompted. For example, the first time I went to visit Hungary, it was on a new European Union ERASMUS agreement made with a similar health faculty at the Pecs University. It was a grand first trip. Many of the folk, I met along the way, are still my friends now. That first trip involved moving from city to city, town to town and meeting nurse educationalists in each place. I was driven everywhere by drivers who spoke little or no English. I spoke no Hungarian.

Regular readers of this blog will know that J and I have spent the last 10 days in Borneo, so what might have given rise to this memory jog? It has probably been the roads we have driven on since arriving in Borneo. For the most part they have been diabolical. Even the ‘motorways’ are littered with roughly filled-in potholes. Bizarrely, we found that even on a short journey, being constantly bumped up and down in your seat resulted in many steps being added on our Fitbits!

Now I first went to Hungary in 2006. That was just two years after the country joined the EU, having previously rid themselves of the Russian occupation in 1991. At that time the roads were just as bad, as those we have travelled on in Borneo. Back then, the journey from Budapest to Pecs (some 210 km apart), where I had a PhD student, would take nearly five hours on those dreadful roads. I have been back a few times since, and the journey now takes half the time on perfect, beautifully smooth, EU-funded motorways.

Like the UK, Borneo is not part of the EU. In those early trips to Hungary ringing home required me to use a land line phone, as my mobile wouldn’t connect with the UK. Just three days ago we sat on the remote Libaran Island, a 45 minute high speed boat trip off the coast of Borneo, where it was possible to pick up 4G reception. And wifi was on its way! The island’s other name, is Turtle Island, and J and I were able to help 35 little green turtle hatchlings into the sea and the start of their lives there. Now that was a once in a lifetime experience.

As well as the turtles, there are five animals that all eco tourists want to see on their visit to Borneo. They are: the pygmy elephant, the rhinoceros hornbill, the proboscis monkey, an estuarine crocodile, and of course the orangutang. By day four of our trip, we had been privileged to have spotted them all. 

For me, the pygmy elephants were the highlight. We were very fortunate. Our guide and boatman had both only seen them three times before this year. It was their knowledge, skill and perseverance that got to us to sit patiently on a small creek in the jungle, hearing the sound of the elephants slowly making their way towards us. When a mature male ambled (yes that is the right word) towards us and out of the jungle, it was simply a magical moment.

Whilst seeing the ‘Big 5’ was only possible with the help of our guides, there was one animal that need no help to be seen - macaque monkeys. These cheeky little monkeys were everywhere. For example, at the Sukau Bilit jungle lodge everyday at 3.30pm, the lodge staff served coffee and cake to their guests. In an almost Pavlovian response, the local monkeys literally poured into the dining area, a large open-sided structure and tried every which way to pinch a piece of cake. Whilst most of the visitors found this highly amusing, the restaurant staff didn’t and occasionally walked around tapping tables with sticks and shooing the monkeys away. The same pantomime was repeated each day. Neither the monkeys or the restaurant staff seemed to be able to break the repetitive pattern of behaviour.

And maybe that was another thing which brought back memories of my visits to Hungary. I had agreed to supervise one of the senior managers in their national health care service to do his PhD. We would mostly do things by email, but we met up regularly to do face-to-face supervision, both in Hungary and in the UK. Doing a PhD is a journey of discovery. Not just to make a contribution to our knowledge, but to discover more about ourselves as people. My student struggled with moving too far away from what he already knew. I struggled to help him. Like our Borneo guide and boatman, I would love to say it was my skill, knowledge and perseverance that got my student over the line, but that would be untrue. Whilst my student did eventually get their PhD awarded, I don’t think it was my finest hour as a supervisor.

After 3 plane journeys and 24 hours of continuous travel, J and I arrived back into the UK at 07.30 on Sunday. We are a little tired and I’m very conscious that I will be back at work tomorrow. I’m sure there will lots of emails to deal with! Over the last 10 months our Trust has moved forward on its improvement journey. Many colleagues have stopped looking backwards and started to look at what is possible in the future. I think there is a real desire now to be always outcome-focused in everything we do, and increasingly, to stop doing what was always done in the past. Like the pothole free roads in Hungary and our sighting of the pygmy elephants last week, I grow increasingly confident that we will also succeed in our journey to becoming an outstanding mental health organisation.